“Then I see her observing you, glaring at you,fucking envying you,” he continues. “I was like JACKPOT!” He suddenly points the gun at me, eliciting a gasp of terror, and laughs at it.
Jodi comes to stand in front of me. “You have everything. The confidence you wear so well, you’re outgoing, and everyone always loves you. You have everyone so enamored that they can’t even look away from you.” She scoffs, twisting a strand of my hair around her finger. “Even my Seb can’t stop staring at you,” she says in a tone so unlike her.
My brows draw together in confusion. “Your Seb? Staring at me? What the fuck are you talking about?”
She tugs at my hair, making me hiss. “Don’t act fool. You have him eating out of the palm of your hand. He’s always fucking hovering around you, following you around like a puppy.”
“That’s not the slightest bit true. We’re just friends. We have always been friends,” I implore her, hoping maybe she’ll help me get out of here if I clear her misunderstanding.
Jodi glares at me instead, slapping my already stinging cheek.
Oh, this bitch!
“Don’t lie to me!” she screeches, but I catchmovement behind John.
I sneak another glance when I feel shadows moving. Not wanting to give away a clue if that might be my help, I look at Jodi.
“Jodi, believe me, there’s nothing going on between us.”
Before Jodi can respond, John pushes her aside. “Okay, that’s enough. Let’s end this and go on our merry ways.”
John raises his gun and points it at me, my breath hitching, awaiting my impending death.
God! I don’t wanna die. Not before I tell Ezra I love him.
As if I summon him from my thoughts alone, his voice echoes in the dark night. “You’d better think about how much you value your life before you pull that trigger, fucker.”
My eyes fall shut in relief as I choke on a sob, the tears flowing down my face.
He’s here. My Ezra is here.
But then I remember that Mullens has a gun. That worry soon eases when my eyes fall on the entire team surrounding us, trapping my captors.
“You’re not supposed to be here!” John shouts as he moves around in circles, searching for anescape.
“You’re not supposed to be breathing. But we don’t all get what we want,” Ezra shrugs, twisting his hockey stick in his hand.
For a second, his eyes collide with mine. The time around us suspends, comes to a halt as he lets me see all the emotions swimming in his eyes. The relief of finding me alive. The fear that might not be in the next few moments. Anger at John for putting us through this ordeal. Hope that we might get away.
And as quickly, the world resumes. He snaps his attention back to John, standing there and looking like an avenging angel.
Myavenging angel.
A voice whispers in my ear, startling me, “Shhh, don’t let them look at us. I’ll get you out of these ropes.” Knowing that it’s Seb calms me, so I nod.
Making quick work of the knots, he releases me. Jodi’s eyes fall on us exactly then, causing John to look at us, too.
That’s when all hell breaks loose.
John presses the trigger with frantic eyes. Ezra’s screams ring in the silence that follows. The guys grab the gun from John’s hand and hold both him and Jodi captive.
While I succumb to gravity, pain like nothing I’ve known before flares in my abdomen. I struggle to breathe, my life flashing before my eyes like a black-and-white movie.
Ezra reaches me before my head touches the ground. Placing my head in his lap, he presses his hand into my blood-soaked wound. “Hold on, Feather. Please don’t leave me. Please, please, please, Kaeli,” he whispers like a prayer.
With a trembling and bloody hand, I wipe his tears, his skin marring in my blood. “Don’t…Don’t cry for me.” I choke on a gasp, as reality seems to slip away from me.
“Don’t close your eyes. Stay with me!” He cries out, the sirens ringing out behind him.
